


If Only

by justtryingnewthings



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Class Differences, F/M, Feels, Friendship, Intense, Mental Health Issues, Mild Smut, Protectiveness, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtryingnewthings/pseuds/justtryingnewthings
Summary: Emerging from different levels of class, it was not easy for Sung Li and He Cheng to adjust to each other’s status. While on hand, He Cheng savored the ever-more simplicity being with Sung Li brought him; on the other hand, he could not help but feel as if this is something not made for him.  Sung Li only approached the affection she had for him, his work or class did not matter. She was confused between love and infatuation.They both enjoyed the new feelings which were felt by them by being with each other secretly.It has been five years and she keeps questioning whether an infatuation is supposed to last that long. Her life has changed a lot since their “secret affair.”
Relationships: He Cheng (19 Days)/Original Female Character(s), He Cheng/Brother Qiu (19 Days), He Cheng/Brother Qiu (19 Days)/Reader, He Cheng/He Tian (19 Days), He Cheng/He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), He Tian & Mo Guanshan (19 Days), He Tian/Jian Yi (19 Days), He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Forbidden Presence

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> So I am new to the fandom and wanted to write a story of a relationship between He Cheng and some fictional character (whom I have named Sung Li). I am new to writing stories as well.  
> The summary provides a small description of what to look forward to and I wanted to see if the fandom would be interested in it.  
> It will be bittersweet with the story covering mental health issues, passionate feelings, unspoken truth, and more.  
> The story will start after the 5-year gap, though through flashbacks, more will be revealed.

Sung Li was going home from a long evening of working at the local convenience store when her phone rang. She took out her phone from her pocket and saw that it was one of her friends, Leng.

“It’s 12:30 am, are you alright?” says Sung Li.

“What? Yes, of course, I am good. I just wanted to invite you to this new club we are going right now,” replies Leng.

This explains Li the loud noise in the background. “Club? No way. I am really tired. It has been a long day, I really need to sleep.”

“It is a really fancy place, please I am sure you will love it. It is not easy to get in and I finally got the pass for tonight. Just come for half an hour tops and I shall permit you to leave,” convinces Leng.

“I don’t know. I have got some assignments left too,” says Li.

“Please Li, just half an hour. It has been so long since we hung out. Please, just once. Drinks are on me.”

“And whose fault is that? Okay fine, just half an hour then I am leaving, and I am wearing basic clothes. I am not in the mood to change, I hope your _fancy club_ does not kick me out.”

“Finally thank you and dare they do that. Meet you in 10? I will send you the address,” says Leng.

“Sure, see you. Bye.”

She hails a taxi and mentally prepares herself to go to the club. She is feeling physically drained and is already dreading this fancy-ass club Leng mentioned. She reaches the destination in 12 minutes and thanks the driver.

Leng is standing outside and calls her to enter the club. Li takes in the surroundings and boy does she feel underdressed, she regrets not changing into better clothes _. “It’s okay, only half an hour and you are out of this fancy shit,”_ she mentally chants to herself.

\\\

15 minutes later and she finds herself sitting alone in the bar because of course Leng found a guy and started flirting with him.

With the promised free drink in her hand, she contemplates why she still hangs out with Leng and agrees to go anywhere with her. Maybe it is to take a break from her loneliness, her self-pitying extravaganza, her need to please others, the list is endless, she believes.

She indulges in a lot of introspection about her past and present in her free time, but she does not allow herself to go to that one place which has always been forbidden by her conscience. She does not want to keep experiencing the pain which it brings her.

Maybe on particularly terrible days, she does allow herself to go there and feel the pain just to be able to feel something; to feel that there was once a time when everything was good.

_Her four close friends – Mo, Tian, Xi, and Ji, her college, her job, her dad, and He Ch…….._

She cannot indulge in the forbidden thought, not in the middle of a club surrounded by so many highly sophisticated people. She cannot go through the feeling of loss, the humiliation, the numbness here.

\\\

_“Never thought I would see you here.”_

Even though she was so zoned out in her thoughts, the likelihood of missing the familiar voice was already in the negatives. She could already sense the feeling rising from her stomach to her brain, the familiar sensation, the familiar cologne, the familiar aura, everything so familiar yet so lost.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to face the person beside her. She looked to her side and faced her past come to reality once again. There he was, so nonchalant and confident, holding his scotch and leaning against the bar.

“Well, my friend dragged me here,” she tried to reply calmly, acting if seeing her ‘forbidden thought’ does not shake her to the core.

“I see. And where is that friend?’ asked He Cheng.

“Ditched me, must have left with one of the guys she met,” replied Li.

“Hmm. What about you? Not interested in any guys here?”

She makes a ‘huh’ sound and replies “It is more like no guys are interested in me. It is not like I have got the time anyway for all this.”

She already regrets what she said _, ‘no need to drag him to my self-pity party’_ , she thinks.

“You never even gave them a chance, maybe that is why,” he replied.

“Maybe. What about you? Saw someone worthy of your attention?”

“Didn’t look around much. Came here with Qiu for some business.”

He looks at her empty glass and asks, “another round?”

She does not think she can take this anymore; she feels suffocated and thinks she is going to puke if she does not leave soon.

“Uhh, no. I better get going. It’s getting late. Thanks for the offer, though,” she replies

She gets up and turns around to take her bag. She can feel his eyes on her, she turns back and unknowingly looks him in the eye.

“Okay, it was nice seeing you, Sung,” he says without breaking eye contact. She could feel the nostalgia in his voice as if he were reminiscing the past too, or maybe she was just being delusional.

“Yeah, lovely seeing you too, Cheng. Goodbye.”

She sees him nod as she leaves.

\\\

As soon as she leaves his sight, she increases her pace and reaches for the exit. The fresh air makes her feel she can handle her one drink which worked astonishingly fast in her system, maybe because of skipping dinner or maybe because of her encounter with the one she could never forget about, even though she tried so hard to.


	2. Guilt-ridden thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it. :)

Cheng saw Li make her way to the end of the bar. All the memories came rushing back to him and the feelings built along with those memories - the pain, the guilt, the soul-crushing regret. He never thought facing his past would be this painful. His tendency to ruin things never changed, only his tendency to tolerate the guilt-ridden feelings increased.

_What he did with Tian, what he did with Li, he only kept on expanding the list._

He made his way to Qiu who had wrapped up the meeting with certain clients and closed the deal. They made their way to the parking lot, he let Qiu drive the car as he did not think he could handle the machinery in his state of mind.

During their drive, his thoughts went back to the past, to the happy memories of how there was a time when everything was going well for him – Tian felt happy being around him, he introduced the love of his life, Mo, to him, how he felt calm around the presence of those four idiots. And undoubtedly Li, he thinks all this partially happened because of her, though she always dismissed him whenever he told her that.

Li was what was well for him, she helped him see his mistakes from a different perspective – made him believe that not everything was his fault, she accepted him as he was. She saw him for who he was as a person, not with the labels of ‘rich gangster’, ‘terrible brother’, ‘terrible son’ surrounding him. Of course, he had to ruin it because he always thought to ruin things before something external ruined it. He could not beli-

“Hey, are you okay?” asked Qiu, interrupting Cheng’s train of thought.

“Yeah, why?” replied Cheng, already dreading the conversation which he sensed was coming up.

“You know why, I know why you left the meeting in the middle. I saw you talking to her.”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal, it has been five years. I am fine,” replied Cheng after taking a long pause.

“Seems like a weird reason to skip driving if it is not such a big deal,” retorted Qiu.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Cheng looked at Qiu with an annoyed expression.

“It means you know you can talk to me because clearly seeing her is bothering you.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, guess I did not expect to see her there, that’s why it caught me off guard.”

And he was right, the club was the last place he expected to see Li. The moment he saw her, he knew he had to go there and talk to her, maybe he thought it would lessen the damage he created but he knew mistakes are not resolved that easily. Since he was a kid, he was taught not to show his expressions outwardly as it could be used against him, now he could not help but be grateful for it as he did not want to show Li how nervous and sorry he was.

One part of him wanted her to know this but another part was not yet to ready to deal with it. He has been wanting to make amends since forever but could not gather up the courage to do the same. He wished his training also taught him how to deal with regrets.

“I know, must be hard seeing her out of nowhere,” said Qiu.

“Hmm, I really don’t want to talk about this.”

“Okay, your call, _boss_.”

They went into an uncomfortable silence as Cheng went back to his thoughts while staring out the window. He was so out of the moment that he could not catch what Qiu said.

“What did you say? I didn’t hear you,” asked Cheng.

“I said she was the one I really liked out of all your girls. She was good for you.”

This was probably the last thing he wanted to hear. Qiu was subtle with his words, he never truly says what he means, you have to read between the lines with him. Cheng knew what he really meant was _‘you screwed up a fairly good thing in your life. Fix it, don’t fix it, that’s up to you’._

“Can we please drop this? I am not in the mood, Qiu,” said Cheng, getting annoyed now.

Qiu gave a light shrug and continued just driving.

\\\

When they reached the mansion, Cheng thought about calling off the day. He took a bath, changed to his nightclothes, and got ready for bed. He knew he would have trouble sleeping tonight and that is exactly what he faced when he laid down. Even after a long day of burnout, he could not stop his unwelcome thoughts.

He thought about taking the easy way out and to jerk off. He knew it would help him get back to sleep straight away, but even jerking off will be a task in this state. He could always call Suzy, have a quick rough session with her but lately, it was getting hard for him to face her. She wanted more from him – a real relationship, and he did not think he was capable of doing that.

He knew he had to fix things with Li and apologize to her, but he didn’t know how to. He could tell from today’s encounter that she didn’t feel comfortable around him, she probably hated him.

Cheng’s twirl of thoughts kept going back to her, he wasn’t able to stop. He finally gave up and decided to do some unfinished work he had left for the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Would love to read your thoughts in the comment.  
> The next chapter will give a glimpse of their past.


End file.
